Ely Takes Stock Of A Bordello That Isn`t What It Seems

ELY, NEV. — Even out here in the lonely hills, far from the 1,000-watt illusions of Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada lives up to its reputation as a place where things aren`t quite what they seem.

Look inside the cement-block walls of the Big 4, the best-known brothel in this little town of flannel shirts and played-out copper mines, and notice the fellow sipping tequila at the bar, the one in the black leather trenchcoat, the velour shirt, the gold chain. Look how he murmurs at the help as they lounge about in their bathing suits and Danskins.

Pretty seamy, at a distance.

Except that the fellow is Ely`s mayor, Barlow White, insurance man, family man, civic booster and lifelong denizen of these isolated reaches, notwithstanding his urban wardrobe.

And what he`s telling the women of the Big 4 is that they should not feel so skeptical about the new building across the street, the startling, two-story, pink Victorian facade that suddenly has been plunked down in the middle of Ely`s low-slung, unadorned, red-light district.

What they are talking about is the Horizontal Bore and Drilling Co., Ely`s newest and gaudiest licensed house of prostitution. It joins the Big 4, the Green Lantern and the Stardust in Ely and about three dozen other legal brothels in small towns around the state, which allows brothels by county option everywhere but Las Vegas and Reno.

Horizontal Bore is a phenomenon that the working women of those houses indeed might wonder about, for it is the only brothel in Ely that offers neither sex nor salaciousness, bed nor bawd.

In fact, behind that amazing Victorian false front is merely a mobile home with some old parlor furniture, and behind Horizontal Bore and Drilling is a relatively respectable, 44-year-old Santa Barbara, Calif., woman named Susan Gottlieb.

Her entire plan, her reason for getting a brothel license in the only state that permits such things, her intent in putting up a building of sorts, is not to be a madame but to sell stock certificates for her cotton-candy dream of a bordello.

It is a pet-rock scheme, which Gottlieb has based on a simple, good-humored theory: ``Wouldn`t every man want to own stock in a whorehouse?``

The H,B&D certificates are $9.95 each, appropriately pink, elaborately filigreed and absolutely without value, because, according to the house`s license, anyone attempting to partake of the brothel`s wares must pass a lengthy examination and bring along such things as written permission from either spouse or mother.

But the certificates are suitable for framing and accompanied by a prospectus so filled with sexual word-play and double meanings that it is impossible to quote without offense.

The certificates can be ordered by calling 800-THRILLS. ``It`s a $10 laugh, probably a couple of really good laughs,`` Gottlieb says.

Ely`s mayor is so enthusiastic about the idea that he led the debate to convince the city council, after Gottlieb survived a background investigation, that she should receive a brothel license. His signature appears on every certificate.

``If 10 million of those things go out and they all have Ely, Nev., on them, that`s the best advertising we could ever have in our life,`` White says.

``Or what if they just sell a million, and 5,000 of those people want to come here and have their picture taken at the place. That could really help our tourism, and then we could really capitalize on what we have. People don`t know this part of Nevada. They think Las Vegas and cactus and sand. That`s really the biggest reason I took (the stock plan) and embraced it.``

If White seems a bit desperate for economic activity, it`s a feeling he shares with many of Ely`s 4,000 citizens, because it was only a few years ago that there were nearly double that many people living here and making good money working in the huge Kennecott copper operation just outside town.

But as the old pit mine became exhausted, as the U.S copper market collapsed with the automobile and housing markets, and as foreign competition increased, Ely went the way of copper towns from Montana to Arizona, and Kennecott just went away.

Today Ely is going through what every boom-and-bust town in the West goes through--the long wait for something to happen next. The Horizontal Bore and Drilling Co. hardly qualifies as that elusive something, but Gottlieb has promised to give the town 10 percent of her profits, and as White says,

``That`s 10 percent more than anybody else has ever given us.``

``There`s some kind of karma between Ely and me,`` Gottlieb says. ``We`re trying to figure out ways the town can make some money on this. After we finished erecting the facade, we had a party and the townspeople were all taking pictures. If this turns out to be a tourist attraction, they`ve got my blessing and my support.``